Tag: time management

You Have Time To Make Your Dreams A Reality

When I tell people
I’m a writer,
the most common response
I receive
is…
“I plan to write a book too
…when I have time.”

Everyone has time
to write a book.

If we write 1 page a day,
we’ll complete
2 short novels
or
1 long novel
in a year.

Or we could take
that same time committment
and start a business.

If we complete 1 business building task
a day,
I suspect most of us
would have a business up and running
in a year or less.

We have time to make
our dreams a reality.
Start today.

When You’re Busy

People are perverse.

If we tell people
we’re busy,
they are more likely
to ask us
to do something for them
than
take tasks off
our to-do lists
or leave us
the f*ck
alone.

My trick is…
I ask people
to do things for me.

Because most people are also lazy.
They don’t want to do more.
So they are
likely to avoid me
until they actually get around
to completing the task.

That gives me
alone time
(usually about a week)
to get things done.

Working Around Meetings

A salesperson loved one
has infinite meetings.
Every spare moment
in his calendar fills up
with them.

So he blocks time
in advance
for sleeping,
for eating,
for working out.

And he blocks time
in advance
for completing non-meeting tasks.
He doesn’t know
what those tasks will be
but he knows
there will be tasks
and he will have to complete them.

Hannah Diop,
co-owner of
Sienna Naturals,
shares

“As the CEO,
my 9-4ish hours
are dominated by meetings,
so I need to block hours
in the evening
to actually think
and get “my” work done.”

Block hours in your calendar
to get sh*t done.

Your Top Five Priorities For The Day

I’m a big believer
in to-do lists.

I always have
a to-do list for the day,
usually with less than 10 core tasks
I need to complete.

It helps me focus on
what is truly important,
limiting the distractions,
and I feel productive
when I cross off items
on my lists.

Ellen Bennett,
Founder of
Hedley & Bennett,
shares
“We keep a shared to-do list
that holds
what I need to tackle
and remember.
It also holds
my top five priorities
for each day
that keep me on track.”

What are your top five priorities
for today?

When Systems Go Down

Your system WILL go down.
That’s a certainty.

What is uncertain is
WHEN it will go down.

This is one of the reasons
I build buffers into
my project timelines
and
offer books on pre-order
and
do as much in advance
as possible.

I also have a list of tasks
I can do
when systems
are offline.

While I wait for someone else
to restore the systems,
I switch to these offline tasks.

Plan for your systems
to be down.
That WILL happen.

Using Your Time Wisely

It is easy for me
to spend my entire day
on social media.
It is marketing.
Every post
sells at least one book.
And it is fun.

But doing that
would stop me from creating,
from producing
more books to sell,
from doing the ‘hard part’
of filling the production pipeline.

I prevent social media overload
by crafting to do lists.
To do lists force me
to do other things,
harder things.

Seth Godin
asks

“How are you
spending your time?

If we took a look
at your calendar,
how much time is spent
reacting
or responding to incoming,
how much is under your control,
and how much is focused
on the hard part?”

Ensure your day is spent
on all the tasks
you need to do,
not merely the fun
or the reactionary tasks.